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All Detective Matt Conley ever wanted was to raise a family in Ocean Park with his stunning and ambitious wife Lisa. When a corpse is found in his church, Matt begins a journey that reveals corruption and decay in his city and deceit in his marriage. As he searches for the murderer of a local businessman, a gang war erupts for control of the city’s drug trade, and the body count rises. With his reluctant new partner, Detective Lloyd Kendricks, Matt weaves his way through the puzzling connections between street gangs, politicians, bikers, and a private kink club.

Will their unlikely alliance be enough to return Matt's beloved hometown to its halcyon days? And will he find the faith he needs to rebuild his crumbling marriage?

“You left them—Kendricks and Channary—and things went terribly wrong. You can’t change that. You had to make a decision.”
“The wrong one.”
“Forget it. I know what Channary would do.”
“What?”
“Pray.”
The room became eerily quiet. The digital clock on the mantle blinked and changed to midnight.
“Right,” he said and rolled his eyes.
She folded her arms. The photo of Steven Pinto—the late Steven Pinto—flickered behind her.
“Channary believed in prayer,” she said.
Wind rattled the windows. A dog barked in the next townhouse and stopped abruptly. He stared at her long and hard before setting the can on the desktop. He laughed.
“Channary’s just a child.”
“A very precocious child. She was teaching us a lesson, Conley.”
“Wonderful. I haven’t got time for this.” He stood and stretched. A calmness came over him. The caffeine had worn off, leaving nothing but the sting of acid indigestion—and a millstone of regret. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. I’m so very sorry.”
She clicked off the computer, sat back in her chair, and took a long drink. She waited a full minute before answering.
“Apology accepted, on one condition.”
He spread his arms and opened his hands.
She leaned forward and her breath smelled like sweet apples. Her face, her porcelain face, so fresh and serious, so different from the hard, made-up face at the Paladin, was all he could see.
“Don’t give up.”
The words hung in the air. Her voice was gristle and sandpaper, filled with resolve.
“Don’t get frozen, Conley. Look forward, not back. To hell with the past. Don’t sleep, don’t get frustrated, and whatever you do, don’t stop. Don’t stop until you find Channary.”

Michael Walsh attended Boston University, where he became a staffer for the Daily Free Press and earned a degree in journalism.

His first professional job was at a public relations and advertising firm, writing press releases that appeared in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and New England Journal of Engineering.

He later became a technical writer, writing and editing jet engine manuals for General Electric Aircraft Engines. GE relocated him to Cincinnati and Florida, where he currently resides.

He’s written and studied fiction for years at BU, the University of Cincinnati, and now Jacksonville, where he won the First Coast Writers Festival short story contest and had work published in the UK’s Twisted Tongue and Askew Reviews. He’s an active member of the Bard Society, Florida’s longest-running writers’ workshop.